Key binding discussion

[punassuming]

If we are concerned about ergonomics, what do you all think about adjusting some of the keybindings to less intensive keys?

I know with Vim when I got in that mind set, I remapped ; to : to save on pressing the shift. What about changing helm-M-x to SPC ; in the same vein? I have a hard time pressing all 3 keys.

In general, I think it would be good to remap bindings to 3 or less keys. The yank ring for example is typically tied to the y key. Why not SPC s y instead of the current SPC k i l?

I know that I can change everything on my side, but I am asking on a crowd level.

Also, has anyone seen what @tpope has done with unimpaired-vim, where he maps most movement specific keybindings to [ or ] + key? This extends the bracket key usage in Vim to multiple different aspects. For example next or previous error is ]l or [l respectively (referencing the listwin). Would a change away from using SPC for everything be frowned on, as I was thinking of trying to port over some of those features.

[syl20bnr]

Spacemacs key bindings are not written in stone. <SPC> k i l is funny and can be changed to <SPC> y right now :-)
But <SPC> : fits nicely with Vim way to execute ex commands, I don't want to change it because as Vim users we already have the muscle memory of : so <SPC> : is natural and easy to remember. It also offers good symmetry.

For the bracket my feeling is that it is not a better solution than <SPC> because it requires the pinky and I don't want to stress the pinky. <SPC> is very easy to reach so it is easy for your muscle memory to memorize it, moreover you won't have to train your muscle memory with a pinky movement that may damage your anatomy in the long run (I have absolutely no proof of that though ! :-)).

If a command needs repetition then create a micro-state for it (see the examples in the readme) in order to save boring required repetition of <SPC>.

I understand that <SPC> requires some time to get used to it but that's the whole point of spacemacs.

[syl20bnr]

I updated the last comment which was very very hard to read, I made it in a hurry between two appointments, sorry for this!

[danielwuz]

@Ralesi +1

I would appreciate if we can have less key strokes for those frequent used command, e.g. evilnc-comment-or-uncomment-lines. This command is so often being used in my daily work that I bind it to M-; in my personal settings. Four keystrokes of this command seems too much for me.

[syl20bnr]

Originally it was just C in normal mode, we changed it recently to <SPC> n c c when switching to evil-nc. It is hard indeed but <SPC> n c opens up all the possibilities from nerd commenter whereas you just have comment toggle with M-;.

Anyway I propose to put a second binding for evilnc-comment-or-uncomment-lines on <SPC> ;.

[syl20bnr]

@Wolfy87 We could reconsider droping the n in <SPC> n c prefix. We don't care that's nerd commenter under the hood. We can move compilation under <SPC> C, it would make sense for me since to compile stuff is a harder action than jsut commenting stuff. So capital C reflects that compiling is a much more "heavy" command.

[punassuming]

@Wolfy87 I like the split between 'c' for comments and 'C' for compilation as well. This goes along with my response to helm bindings we talked about in #71 about making the prefix bindings action specific and not necessarily package specific.

[punassuming]

I went through the current bindings and here is what I find in terms of prefixes.

(NOTE: I have a few packages removed from default)

SPC	Desc	Prefix Command
SPC S	Spelling	Prefix Command
SPC a	Applications	Prefix Command
SPC as	Shell	Prefix Command
SPC b	Buffers	Prefix Command
SPC e	Error	Prefix Command
SPC f	File	Prefix Command
SPC g	Git / VCS	Prefix Command
SPC h	help / helm	Prefix Command
SPC i	Insert	Prefix Command
SPC j	Join / Split	Prefix Command
SPC n	narrow / nerd-comment	Prefix Command
SPC r	replace / registers	Prefix Command
SPC s	search	Prefix Command
SPC t	toolbar / gui	Prefix Command
SPC w	window	Prefix Command
SPC x	text size / text editing	Prefix Command
SPC z	Cursor movement	Prefix Command

[syl20bnr]

I'm surprised by this table, it does make sense even though I never made such a listing before. That's pretty cool :-)

Thank you for this, we will be able to use it as a basis to improve the documentation.

[valrus]

Sorry if this is obvious, but how can the SPC-prefix keys be rebound in my contrib layer? I disabled projectile and would like to have SPC p be used as a prefix for perspective.el instead. But (evil-leader/set-key "ps" 'persp-switch) doesn't work because SPC p isn't a prefix key. evil-leader doesn't seem to have any functions for unbinding keys. What do?

[syl20bnr]

@valrus Luckily enough it works if you put in your dotspacemacs/init function.

This make me think that we should not use projectile-commander since it brings nothing really new to the table. For shortcut discovery we already have guide-key. Moreover projectile-commander has a non-spacemacs-standard way to interact with the user.

[valrus]

Thank you!

[syl20bnr]

projectile-commander has been replaced by explicit key bindings in v0.16.0

[syl20bnr]

Since v0.29.0 it is now possible to change : and SPC : with dotspacemacs-command-key variable.

I'm still open to the other bindings discussed here, some of them have already been changed.

Closing the discussion for now.